A Case of Stuttering

USING FACIAL ANALYSIS

Facial analysis is an important part of case taking because a correct analysis will determine the dominant miasm of the patient.  This is no accident or chance analysis.  Our facial structure (in fact our whole being) is determined by forces that have come together to make matter (us).  These forces are simple energies that behave in predictable ways – the laws of physics, mathematics, chemistry and homeopathy are all observable outcomes of these forces.

There are many ways we can interpret these forces – through disease, through behaviour, through sensations and through the face.  However human beings are complex creatures and it is easy for us to misinterpret the outcomes of these forces.

Examples:

• A dictatorial, aggressive person – psora, sycosis or syphilis?
• A happy gentle laughing person – psora, sycosis or syphilis?
• A cruel, intimidating person – psora, sycosis or syphilis?
• A disease with dry skin – psora, sycosis or syphilis?
• A disease with ulcers – psora, sycosis or syphilis?
• A disease with tumours – psora, sycosis or syphilis?

Answer – any of these persons or diseases can be found in any of these miasms.

And these examples don’t even include the other four miasms – tubercular, syco-psora, syco-syphilis and cancer.  Each of these miasms may also contain any of the examples above.

So how does a miasm help us in choosing a remedy?  Or in understanding a case?

A miasm is dictated by the energies that drive it:

Psora – outward Sycosis – circular Syphilis – inward

All diseases are found in all miasms.  All behavioural types are found in all miasms.  However when studied carefully, there is a dominant state to every person and to every remedy. When these are matched successful health outcomes will result.  These forces have shaped our physical being and are observable through the face.

In the clinic it helps to keep things very simple – both for practitioners and for our patients.  Patients often just want to get better and aren’t always interested in deep mental or emotional probing.

A simple way to determine a miasm is to study the shape, size and setting of our facial features.  Combined with a thorough case taking, correct rubric choice and repertorisation, a successful remedy can be found quite easily.

This case demonstrates how a polychrest is found to improve impaired speech in a young boy.

BOY AGED 3 AND A HALF – PRESENTS WITH STUTTERING

June 2005

This young boy came to the clinic with the problem of stuttering.  His mother observed that the stuttering was particularly bad at the beginning of a sentence but improved as the speech continued.  It is also worse when he is excited.  His overall health is good and he has only had one or two small colds and never been given any antibiotics.  He is generally in good spirits and gets on well with his family and friends.  Whether alone or with company he is quite content.  Sometimes he has bad dreams and will wake anywhere between 1am and 5am.  Occasionally he finds it difficult to get to sleep.  He had a water-birth, his diet is healthy and the only food he really likes (his mother doesn’t approve) is meat.

We use three simple steps to find a remedy

1 – Case analysis

2 – Repertorisation

3 – Miasm as determined by facial analysis

The remedy is given according to the sensitivity of the patient and repeated as required.

Case Analysis

We are looking for the totality of symptoms based on three areas

1. Mental – one or two obvious rubrics will be required
2. General – four to six general rubrics must be included as this is how the body is displaying its imbalance
3. Physical – one or two rubrics if the physical rubric has strong impact on the patient

A thorough case taking will include the following aspects of a patient

• Current emotional state
• Previous emotional state
• Recurring events in their life
• Current physical state – with modalities for each complaint
• Previous physical state – with modalities for each complaint
• Relationship to the environment

Repertorising

From these areas rubrics are chosen. A question we are often asked is why we use rubrics containing so many remedies?

Answer – because our remedy will be included in these rubrics.  Smaller rubrics may not include our required remedy – we can lose sight of our remedy when using smaller rubrics.

Large rubrics contain 30-500 remedies

Small rubrics contain < 30 remedies

When using large rubrics it is similar to casting a big net into the sea to catch as many fish as possible.  The chance of our remedy being in the catch is high.  Then we do a sort, to exclude all the remedies we know cannot be right.

How do we know what these remedies are?

Each of the major polychrests has been studied and classified according to its dominant miasm.  We are only interested in the remedies that match the miasm of our patient.

So we look at the large amount of remedies that have been thrown up in our repertorisation – perhaps as many as 20 or more.  Miasmatic classification allows for six sevenths of these remedies to be ignored (as they belong to a miasm different from our patient) leaving us with 2 or 3 remedies to consider.

CASE CONTINUED

A case with only one presenting problem is always a difficult one to prescribe on.  With this young boy only three rubrics could be chosen.

SPEECH & VOICE; SPEECH; stammering (94) GENERATLITIES; FOOD and drinks; meat; desires (52) MIND; DREAMS; nightmare (163)

Eleven remedies show under these three rubrics

Nux Vomica – 3,2,4 Sulphur – 2,2,3 Mag Carb – 2,2,1 Mercury – 3,1,1 Iodum – 1,1,2 Phosphorus – 2,1,1 Staphysagria – 1,2,1 Carcinosin – 1,1,1 Helleborus – 1,1,1 Nat Mur – 1,1,1 Sepia – 1,1,1

Finding our patient’s miasm

We know that character, emotions and diseases cross all miasms.  So to find our patients dominant miasm we must use a method that is the least open to misinterpretation.  Our patients face is a concrete way to determine which forces are dominant in them.  These forces are leading to their current out of balance state whether physical, emotional or both.

We are all born with these forces intact within us.  They are both a positive and negative experience.  When overburdened (stress of any type) these forces become unsteady and we display both emotional and physical symptoms to demonstrate how stressed we have become.  However these forces can never be removed (or we wouldn’t be us) but they can be calmed.  A remedy properly selected calms down these forces leaving us free to use them in more positive ways.

Facial analysis is a fascinating and simple way to know exactly which miasm (forces or energies) are part of our inheritance.  Once determined a remedy that matches both the miasm and the case can be selected.

CASE CONTINUED

One of these eleven remedies was chosen and the stuttering stopped the next day.  By using the patients facial features as our sole guide to their dominant miasm the remedy can be chosen.

This boy’s facial features were analysed as follows

Psora (yellow)	Sycosis (red)	Syphilis (blue)
Ears	Chin Lips Eyes Eyes Nose Forehead Bridge of nose Hairline Teeth Smile	Chin Ears Teeth

This boy is dominantly sycotic (red) and needs a remedy from this group.  He is given Sepia 30 to take daily for a few weeks.  On day 2 of taking the remedy his stuttering stops completely.  Four months later (October 2005) there is some return of the stuttering.  A single dose of Sepia 200C and the stuttering stops again.  In March 2006 the stuttering makes a mild return – a single dose of Sepia 200C and it stops again.  In July 2007 there has been no return of his stuttering.

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Victorian College of Classical Homeopathy

Established in 1989 in Melbourne, Australia VCCH has proudly taught homeopathy to both undergraduate and post graduate students.  The college led by principal Grant Bentley, has focussed solely on using facial analysis (HFA) to determine patients’ miasms since 1999.  A leader in this new method, the college aims to bring HFA to the homeopathic world by incorporating the best of homeopathy as our forebears promoted

Hahnemann – potentised medicine, single medicine, totality of symptoms, miasms

Boenninghausen -general rubrics and repertorising

Kent – the person as a whole

Allen/Roberts – facial features and miasms

www.vcch.org

Current books by Grant Bentley

Appearance and Circumstance – 2003 – Miasms, facial features, photos, cases – how  HFA developed and its application

Homeopathic Facial Analysis – 2006 – the how to of HFA – a desktop guide to facial analysis contains hundreds of photos and sketches with defined parameters

New book – to be published 2008 – the forces of nature, positive and negative aspects of these forces, our faces, our grouping (miasm), universal forces and their impact on history and social times.